“It’s hard to take that too seriously and to see it as anything other than bringing the price down of an asset,” Bernstein Securities analyst Robin Bienenstock said Monday of AT&T’s comments.

Vodafone Chief Executive Vittorio Colao professed to be unconcerned with AT&T’s intentions. “We are focused on our own strategy and our own story,” he told reporters Monday. “We are starting to see the fruits of our strategy in terms of broadband net growth and revenue growth.”

An AT&T representative couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Ms. Bienenstock said the Ono deal likely won’t change AT&T’s interest level at all, as it cements Vodafone’s commitment to a pan-European footprint. The Ono deal is Vodafone’s first since acquiring Germany’s Kabel Deutschland last year, also for around $10 billion.

But Ms. Bienenstock said Vodafone’s European expansion plan fundamentally comes too late, with the prices of its targeted assets having risen uncomfortably high. The agreed valuation of Ono, at 7.5 times 2013 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, is at the “very, very outer limit of what you can justify if execution is perfect,” she said.

“If there is no bid from AT&T, [Vodafone] needs to have a re-enforced business in Europe [with a] concentrated, strong set of assets,” Ms. Bienenstock said. “The only way to do that is to invest loads in capex and to buy a bunch of things. Nobody is going to like that.”

But Standard & Poor’s analysts caution that while AT&T would benefit from geographical diversification and 4G mobile broadband growth in European markets through a Vodafone acquisition, scale benefits would be limited given its size and purchasing power.

Moreover, European wireless fundamentals remain weak relative to the U.S. due to competitive pressures and a relatively less benign economic outlook, they warn.